Choosing Celibacy In An Age of Sex Obsession
In a dating landscape where “no” is never enough and media almost always revolves around sex, what happens when you take it off the table?
At the ripe age of 21, I was learning that our perceptions of people and places, most often, rarely meet their reality. Emotionally depleted from a corporate job and challenging my understanding of relationships, I moved across the country to a place where I knew only one or two people, to a place where I could seemingly, guilt and distraction-free, focus on the one thing I felt I had never been able to: myself.
My next move was the mistake of (genuinely) putting “looking for friends” in my Tinder bio. I had learned that although strides were being made for some women in the workplace, romantically, female sexuality was still seen as a means to serve heteronormative, male pleasure. So, I started practicing celibacy to try and relearn, on my terms, what served me.
I went on a handful of what I wanted to be friend dates. Peter took it as a shot to his ego when I reaffirmed I wanted friendship after we went out and got along. He responded “true” to my text message and we didn’t talk again. Nick smiled when I told him, as if it were “cute”, and then he tried to kiss me.
It was transparently illustrated to me that if I identified as a heterosexual, single female, and was spending time with other heterosexual, single men, I had to submit to a role that had been defined long before anyone took the time to get to know me, and more significantly, long before I got to know myself.
I used to date a lot more, but predominantly because I never thought of there being an option to not date. What desirable, single, female role models were out there? Happiness to millennials has been built on glamorized portrayals of sex-centered cosmopolitan life, a one-dimensional narrative. Characters, especially female ones, are never completely fulfilled without sex, which makes it seem as though its importance is equivalent to our thirst or hunger: if you don’t have it, you need it, and if you are having it, are you having enough? Any other perceived values women hold in this narrative are secondary and seem to be thrown out the window at the first sign of a man being attracted to them. If initially a woman says no to this interest, the man persists and this persistence is seen as romantic instead of intrusive.
Girls, The Mindy Project, Ingrid Goes West, How to be Single, Scandal, Ibiza, and Sex and the City, to only name a few, are all forms of popular North American media that encourage this mindset. Ironically, these media have been celebrated for female representation, paying no mind to how females are represented and the values they carry/are willing to throw away in search of a man. We praise female representation and stop there, hands clapping, carrying no standard for content.
I can’t help but think that this type of exposure to media added to my prolonging of hurtful and problematic connections. After each “relationship” I had ended, I pursued another: same behaviors, different name and face. At first my independence intrigued men I went out with; but soon, any step forward I took in my career would upset them and intrigue turned into hostility. If I cut my hair they’d tell me they liked it better long, or my make-up a certain way, more natural, or my clothes tighter, more feminine. I never liked this, but I also never left. The world was telling me my worth depended on a man’s approval. So I would wait, and try and fix whatever it was I had done wrong to push them away. I was in a constant race with the self I wanted to be and the self I was being told to be, by more than just these men, by society, and by media.
In my mid-twenties I dated less and less because I realized it didn’t matter what I did — so long as what I was doing was for me, most men would be less attracted to it. Thank you, Gillian Flynn, for blatantly addressing the “Cool Girl” ideal and helping me better understand why the men I thought appreciated “strong women”, mostly appreciate strength when it is to their convenience, when it doesn’t require them to appreciate what they do not recognize. They appreciate when we split the bill, but never when I express my own thought or feeling. I struggle to be seen and heard as an individual — as a woman I am always serving, or not serving some objectified, idealized, sexual end.
I started talking to more and more women about their relationship experiences to understand if I was alone in my frustration. Turns out, I wasn’t.
Two young women whose names have been changed for privacy are both currently choosing to live celibate.
Rachel, who is 21, has had fulfilling romantic relationships but says it’s a surprise to others when she stands by her no-sex boundaries.
“[People have this idea that] if you’re not following the social script or you’re not saying what the average conventional pretty woman in your twenties would say, they assume you’re just saying that for now.”
It’s as if her boundaries are just playful challenges for her partner.
“[My past partner] just assumed that eventually we would have a sexual relationship, regardless of what I told them my priorities and values are. At one point he said, ‘come on, it’s gotta happen sometime.’ I’m used to being pushed and then having to push back,” she said.
Rachel painted a picture of having to swat her partner’s hand away over and over from the top of her underwear.
Amy, who is 22, added that…
“Throughout post-secondary I became way more aware of how women are controlled sexually and in other ways. When you actively say no yet [the pressure to have sex] keeps continuing, it’s like this is the type of thing they talk about, this is rape culture in the flesh; you think you own my body when I’m telling you, you don’t.”
Certain movements aiming to change our sex culture, like sex-positive feminism, are liberating for some, but not all. They exclude anyone who is choosing to abstain from sex, have experienced trauma, have a medical condition, or who identify as asexual or demi-sexual, etc.
“That’s the [predominant] idea of liberation, having a lot of sex. I’m a virgin and I don’t have sex and I’m empowered by that. I feel empowered to say no to someone because I don’t want to do something.” Rachel said.
Amy added…
“A lot of my friends have had bad relationships but then have said, ‘the sex is good, so I can put up with it.’ It’s as if you’re not worth anything unless someone else tells you that you’re special to them, but you can be special to yourself and value your own self. [Sex] for me could happen in the future; it could happen today, tomorrow or a year from now but I’m not rushing into it because it doesn’t affect my life that much. It’s just not my idea of a good way to get to know someone.”
To compliment Amy’s sentiment, bell hooks in All About Love writes, “Too often women, and some men, have their most intense erotic pleasure with partners who wound them in other ways. The intensity of sexual intimacy does not serve as a catalyst for respect, care, trust, understanding, and commitment.”
This is a notable gap in our society’s learning that “sex matters”, and little else.
Rachel and Amy are resisting forms of extreme sex-positive feminism and are more aligned with sex-negative feminism or sex-critical feminism. They are rebuilding a social norm to include themselves in the decisions they are making.
Amy complimented my shaved head and after shared reactions she’s had to her pixie cut,
“So many guys say ‘you should grow your hair out, I don’t like girls with short hair’.”
Her response to these men was clear and perhaps “unbelievable”, she said:
“I’m not doing it for you”.
Five years have passed since I was that 21 year-old girl I spoke about at the beginning of this essay and I now understand certainly that, contrary to popular media education, what one wants in love and sex is not something we immediately come to know the second we start dating or being sexually active, and it’s not the same for everyone. It’s an extremely personal learning process. Nevertheless, I still battle with most media on a daily basis telling me the opposite.
hooks writes, “even though sex matters, most of us are no more able to articulate sexual needs and longing than we are able to speak our desire for love.”
We assume sex is of utmost importance in our relationships because that’s what we’ve been told, whether it’s casual or serious… but what comes with sex? Physical stimulation, an emotional connection, or both? Who are we attracted to, and why? What happens when you don’t feel empowered after sex? What happens if you feel broken? Or a feeling lingers for the person you were with. Having feelings attached to sexual intimacy isn’t something we are taught to navigate — it isn’t something society deems as desirable. When we’re constantly, ambiguously told “sex matters”, it leaves unanswered questions at the table. When these questions and feelings surface, we bury them and move on, unchanged. Sex matters, but so do a lot of other things and most notably: the people involved.
You only see women with long, natural hair in media and that’s why you’re more sexually “attracted” to me with long hair. I fear your attraction to me has nothing to do with who I am, but rather with how well I’m performing your idea of who I am. You are told sex is everything to everyone and that’s why when I ask you to wait, you pull me closer, you think I’m playing a game, that it isn’t a decision I can make. It’s so simple, yet no one believes it’s the truth. So many of these sexual, gendered preferences we hold so dearly have been fed to us since we were young. They aren’t personal, they’re curated and they can yield quite dangerous results. hooks writes, “males in our society are convinced that their erotic longing indicates who they should, and can love. Led by their penis, seduced by erotic desire, they often end up in relationships with partners with whom they share no common interests or values… if men were socialized to desire love as much as they are taught to desire sex, we would see a cultural revolution.”
When we are introduced to an unpopular attitude towards sex, such as Amy or Rachel’s choice of celibacy, or anyone practicing alternative boundaries, we tend to lack openness and are quick to dismiss. We disbelieve the reality that sexuality comes complicated, attached to some level of emotion. Those TV shows, movies, and advertisements all show sex a certain, perhaps easy and appealing way, but all have another thing in common: they aren’t an accurate representation of real.
Mass media increasingly discourages vulnerability, sensitivity, honesty with oneself and a personal choice in romantic boundaries, and judging from my interactions as a young, single woman of 5 years, a lot of people have bought into it. Friends who have pursued even casual sexual relationships are disheartened when their partner cannot exercise limited honesty and respect with them, their partner fears they might “get the wrong idea”. We constantly ask each other: since when is basic human decency a serious relationship? It’s as if our only options as women are “hook-up buddy” or “wife material”, both romanticized commodities.
Discussions can go a long way in the diversification of society’s values. Contrary to what the media suggests, talk does not kill romance; hooks writes, “it merely changes its nature”. If Peter or Nick were open to getting to know me more instead of only wanting to place me into an already sculpted role in their lives, we could have been friends today, or at the very least, learned something from each other. Who knows, we could have wound up dating! But single women are not romantic currency. It wasn’t, and still isn’t, ridiculous of me to want friendship, or to want to be seen as a person, instead of a placeholder, first.
We need to learn how to critically analyze the media’s voice and differentiate it from others (including our own) to be able to re-learn what sexuality means to us. With openness, conversation, education, and ultimately holding onto a constant goal of understanding, we can change societal expectations into what they should always be: choices.
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